president obama is dealing directly and spoke frequently sunday with the senate majority leader harry reid while vice president joe biden spoke frequently sunday with republican leader in the senate mitch mcconnell. mcconnell and biden get along much better than mcconnell does with president obama. in the last 24 hours, the administration has given ground on raising threshold for income tax rates and estate tax rates, but also demanded much more in new government spending the republicans are comfortable with. it's that division between spending and taxes that continues to divide both sides, and that is the one thing that may prevent a deal from being achieved in the final hours as we get nearer to the fiscal cliff. >> major garrett, thank you. senator is live on capitol hill. >> thanks for having me. >> if there's a deal today, why would you vote to extend tax cuts if there are no new spending cuts? >> that's the exact thing. the real problem is the spending. if you want to raise taxes -- and the president promised in the campaign he wanted to do that -- it's to pay down on the defici